The End of The World
by BekaOperetta
Summary: The Doctor and Amy have a heart to heart.


I must apologize for this in advance, the time line is very skewed in this story, for continuity purposes. This fic is set after "A Time of Angels/The Stone Flesh." However, for the sake of this fic please use this altered time line.

· The Eleventh Hour

· The Beast Bellow

· Victory over the Daleks

· The Vampires of Venice

· Amy's Choice

· The Doctor's Wife (Ponds aren't married)

· A Time of Angels/The Stone Flesh

You won't have to stretch your imagination to understand, but references are made that wouldn't make sense otherwise. (If it helps, although it isn't necessary to know, Rory is visiting his dad) Also, the Date is: December 21, 2012. Okay, enough rambling, Allons-y!

"Stupid apes." the Doctor muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" Amy asked. The edge in her voice caused him to swallow involuntarily.

"Nothing, I was just, um, admiring the human ability to irrationally fear their demise, by coming up with new ideas of impending doom. Truly creative and incredibly… well, silly." he replaced stupid. Amy was surprised there wasn't an evident trace of sarcasm in his explanation.

"They're scared. The future can be pretty daunting when you don't know what's supposed to happen."

"So, you resort to ancient calendars of extinct races." His brow knit together, disbelieving.

"Not so hard to believe." She retorted.

"You were actually taken in by such nonsense." he scoffed.

"Better to be safe than sorry." she fell into the jump seat and folded her arms defensively.

"Well, I've got news for you lot; there are a few billion years between now and the end of the earth. Five to be exact and I really don't think storing up nonperishable food items now is going to help. Can you imagine five billion year old tuna." he winced at the thought. "It'd be worse than that insufferable trash planet, and…"

"Can we go?"

"The trash planet?" The Time Lord was taken aback. "After all we went through you'd…"

"No, Doctor… five billion years… the end of the world. It'd be interesting to see how it actually happens." While Amy pondered her planets fate the Doctor fought to keep his thoughts present. No need in burdening a second companion with the bittersweet fate of Rose Tyler, or was it third.

"I, don't think, um, no." he fumbled over his response.

"Why not, is it time locked or something?" he'd never refused to take her someplace before. The life changing words 'all of time and space.' ran across her mind.

"No." he answered to quickly, realizing rule number one could have been extremely useful.

"Then there's nothing stopping us, let's go!"

"Amy, I've already been. Really it's nothing special." he tried to detour her.

"You've been everywhere! If we traveled only to the places you hadn't seen we'd be done in a week." Amy retraced her steps to the console, and was now standing parallel to the Doctor.

"Not supposed to travel to the same moment in time twice. Run into yourself you can change the outcome, rewrite your own history."

"Can." she pointed out "we'll just be really carful."

"It's too…" he started.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me it's too dangerous. That's half the reason I came, besides when don't we do anything 'too' dangerous."

"We're not going." he turned on his heels.

Amy stared at him silently begging him to change his mind, and completely unable to see how she was winding him up.

"Doctor…" she wined

"No." he said softly and emphatically.

"Please?" Amy pressed. This time the Doctor ignored her altogether and pulled the monitor down to eye level, focusing on nothing and everything. For a moment her thought she had given up.

"Please?"

"Amelia!" it was only one word, but the harsh undertones had Miss Pond recoiling towards the door. Suddenly he was disgusted with himself and he let out a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry. I… can't." he turned for his room before she could respond. Or so she thought, and was stunned when he made a right into the room directly across from his.

That was the locked room. The one she and Rory talked about in hushed whispers. She had asked the Doctor about it once. He spouted off some nonsense about maintenance cupboard, wormhole refractors and a warp drive. But just before he went into madman Doctor Mode he spared a small sad smile.

'What happened at the end of the world?' she sighed and headed for her own room, only to suddenly stop when the temptation to push the cracked door open became too much. A pink maintenance cupboard, with a bed, and a dresser, she smiled internally at the pile of cloths resting at the foot of the bed. Just wait till she saw Rory again.

The Doctor was stretched out across the pink duvet, staring at the ceiling seemingly lost in thought.

"This is a very unique maintenance cupboard."

"Rule number one." She nodded, and shuffled her feet across the floor. "Do you know why there's a rule number one?" he asked. Amy sat down cross legged on the floor beside him.

"Why?" she said. Although she suspected he would have answered despite her indulgence.

"Because of Rose." she now assumed this was 'Rose's' room, and waited for him to continue. "I told her everything all at once. Shoved the darkest parts of the universe at her on our first date no less." Amy forced herself to focus and avoid pointing out words like 'date'. "The end of the world. That was our first date, we had chips." he smiled at more than one memory.

"I was so angry, and bitter, and, and heartbroken. I thought if I showed her the darkness she wouldn't want to stay. She'd see me as a monster and leave."

"You didn't want her to stay."

"Oh, I did. I even asked her a second time when she said no."

"Then why?"

"I didn't deserve her kindness… but I wanted it. She saw right through me, and from that very first trip she decided to stay with me… forever. A promise she made ignorantly." he turned to look at her. "Like when you so blindly chose to follow Rory in the dream world." her eyes widened.

"You... loved her?"

"No, I love her." he chuckled. "Amazing how one little letter can change everything."

"What… what happened to her?" The Doctor knew that was coming. So why, now that the question was asked, did it hurt.

"Well, we were caught in the middle of a war. Daleks and Cybermen." he spat. "She fell into the void, or would have if it weren't for her father. The thing is Amelia, there are millions and billions of parallel universes stacked up against each other. The Void is the nothingness in between. It's impossible to travel to travel through if you want to keep the walls of the universe intact, which I do. So when it closed with Rose on the other side..."

"She was trapped." he nodded.

"Can you imagine standing in the same room in two completely different worlds?" His gaze drifted towards the floor. "I was able to project a hologram of myself on a beach in Norway, burnt up a sun so I could see her one last time. Then she… she told me she loved me, but I didn't get the chance to tell her back. Sun was gone and so was the transmission."

"How terrible, and you would never see her again." he smiled so bright, she thought it could outshine any star.

"Rose was brilliant. Is brilliant. She fought her way back. I'll never forget the moment I saw her." Amy felt a smile spread across her face. "Well, there aren't words to describe it, but you know." Amy nodded. She did know. "Through a series of unpredictable circumstances I cloned a human version of myself. Now, Rose and I live in a parallel universe, with her family, where we can… grow old together." His voice was so thickly laced with longing. Amy felt tears swelling in the corners of her eyes. It was beautiful, and so completely unfair.

"I… I knew, Amy. I knew exactly what she wanted to hear, exactly what I needed to say, and I let him say it, because… well because, she deserves better than me. She deserves a life, with a house, and children, and Christmas with her mum and dad. Not a blue box and a silly alien." his voice grew quiet and with Amy seemingly out of questions The Doctor allowed himself to indulge in distant memories.

Amy liked to think she knew the Doctor. Knew his quirks and ticks, likes and dislikes. She honestly thought she had him figured out, and then he went and tossed her a curveball. Somewhat like the one he tossed when she met...

"What about River? I thought she was you're wife?" he sighed, truly frustrated with the idea of 'Professor Song' and her overly forward flirtations.

"Do you want to know a secret, Amy?"

"Well, since you're sharing." she considered his half smile a victory.

"I've only seen her twice, and both times she's insinuated we were married."

"So you don't know…"

"We're traveling in opposite directions in the time stream. My past is her future, and If she dies tomorrow, what happened yesterday will be gone."

"You're past will be rewritten."

"Yes and, I'll die, she saved me Amy. She saved me because I have her past to look forward to, which seems to include marriage. The question is why do I marry her." he sighed and silence enveloped them.

"I miss her. Rose, I mean. I hope she's happy. She deserves to be happy, and if I know me she is. Sure it would be hard at first, but Rose would learn to love me again. Eventually they'd be able to live a brilliant life. Fantastic even." He smiled content. The most peaceful smile she'd seen on him, and she committed it to her memory.

"Maybe, one day I'll learn to love River too." Amy gave him a curious look. His voice was sad and small, but there was the smallest inkling of hope. She wasn't sure if it was genuine, but silently she wished the Doctor would be able to love River if only to sooth his aching heart.


End file.
